Sexually Risky

If you want to know about sexual behavior, leave it to a condom company to get scoop on what we do in between the sheets. According to the Durex Sexual Well Being global survey, U.S. men and women practice some of the riskiest sexual behavior in the world. What the hell?

The global survey examined the sexual attitudes and behaviors of more than 26,000 people in 36 different countries. The study indicates 60 percent of U.S. men and women didn’t use any form of protection against HIV/AIDS or sexually transmitted infections when they lost their virginity versus 49 percent in Mexico and 47 percent in Columbia.

And more surprisingly is that among those who “went raw” (no condom used) , the largest proportion of U.S. men and women — 49 percent — say they were “confident” their sexual partner was free of STIs, although 20 percent of all those in a relationship admit they were unsure of their partner’s experience. The implications for this type of reasoning is beyond unplanned pregnancy, think incurable sexually transmitted infections.

U.S. men claim to have an average of 20 different sexual partners in total — versus 27 Canada, 24 in Australia, but more than 19 in France, 17 in Britain or 15 in Mexico. U.S. women say they had 10 partners on average, the same number as women in Britain and France, but more than in Canada at 9 and Italy at 8.

The survey was conducted by Harris Interactive online in 35 countries and face to face in Nigeria from Sept. 6 to Oct. 3.